Microcosm
by Mark Geoffrey Norrish
Summary: Harry and Hermione run interference on Ron's Christmas Eve date.


Even during a war, Diagon Alley was simply lovely on Christmas Eve. Baubles hung on cables draped between roofs and eaves; tiny snow crystals drifted in a gentle breeze, hanging off people's eyelashes; and two huge, fluffy white Alsatians were running around, tackling one another and singing wizarding Christmas carols.

Hermione fluffed her thick pink scarf up around her ears; powdery snow fell continually, gathering in her hair and clothes, just thick enough underfoot to support footprints. Shoppers crowded about her; there was still booming commerce despite Voldemort. She was waiting for Harry outside Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, which was as raucous as ever; on top of at least a hundred noisy customers, what sounded like O Merlin's Staff, a recent Weird Sisters hit single, and a Muggle rock song all played concurrently from enchanted speakers.

According to Harry, he and Ron had taken almost an entire day to persuade Ron's parents it would be safe enough; Ron had had to claim that he still had Christmas shopping to do and then rope four Order members in as sentries. He'd actually finished two weeks previously, but had unwisely promised Lavender a date. Harry had then sent Hedwig, requesting urgent help.

"Hermione! Sorry I'm late."

Hermione turned. Harry had popped out of an alleyway between two shops, meaning he'd probably ducked in to take off his Invisibility Cloak inconspicuously, meaning he'd probably ditched his Order escort. She sighed internally; she had been so looking forward to spending a nice, normal, relaxing Christmas Eve with her best friend.

Externally, her face lit up as she smiled in welcome. "Not at all, Harry." Their breaths formed little clouds in front of their faces when they spoke. "I've only been here for a minute. You said there was an emergency?"

"Yeah," he said, "Ron's taking Lavender on a date today."

When she was much younger, and her confidence had been buoyed by straight perfect grades and two picked Agatha Christie villains, Hermione had thought she was smart enough that she would eventually understand anything and everything she set her mind to. That had been before she befriended any boys.

"I already knew that," she said patiently. "Lavender's gone on about it for at least a fortnight. You knew I already about it, because I mentioned it to you in passing when we were doing Charms homework Thursday last."

He blinked, as though surprised she remembered that conversation. "I thought this bothered you more than it bothered me?"

"So did I," she replied. "I haven't forgiven him for being insensitive" and self-centred, irrational and cruel "about this entire business, but I've had a few days to myself. They say that time and space are great for perspective. If he wants to date her, that's his affair. Why are you upset?"

"Do you remember when I went out with Cho for Valentine's Day?"

"As if I could forget," said Hermione. Hearing Harry talk about it after had been bad enough, never mind actually being there.

"That was completely horrible," Harry went on candidly. "I only wish I'd had someone there to bail me out when it went wrong. So we're going to do that for Ron."

A dozen ways this could go wrong flashed before her mind's eye.

"Ron's much more … forthright than you," she said tentatively. "I'm sure he'll tell her if he doesn't have fun. He never stops telling _me_ that when we're doing homework. Can't we just enjoy ourselves today? There's a sale on at Flourish and Blotts."

Harry gave her a look she couldn't possibly have said no to. It was rather like how he'd looked just before telling her they needed to go and save Sirius or stop Quirrel from getting past Fluffy.

"Oh, fine," she sighed. "Do you know where they're going?"

"Ron and I stopped at Quality Quidditch Supplies," said Harry. Ah; that would be why he was late. "There's this new line out with three brooms, Simurgh Aleph, Beth and Gimel, and Ron's Cleansweep is about as good as a Beth, so we were comparing specs."

Hermione cringed inside, although she kept her face neutral. Probably she and she alone would know that Simurghs were Iranian creatures and aleph, beth and gimel were Hebrew; it was as jarring to her as splicing French and German vocabulary. Even if she explained this, no-one else would care. Maybe she could get find a Ravenclaw who might commiserate with her.

"Well, let's go, then," she said. She took his hand and they set off.

"I was thinking Hogwarts should buy a few Alephs for flying lessons," Harry went on. "They're basic but look like really good value, and those old ones we have for flying class are awful. You can't learn on those. What do you think?"

She thought it sounded like he was suggesting they waste money as well as time on Quidditch while there was a war on and very few Aurors had any sort of body armour. "I think I nearly killed myself in first year quite enough without being on a racing broom and going twice as fast."

"That's exactly what I mean. They're jerky and buck. Proper, new brooms fly much more smoothly …"

She tuned out his exact words, focussing instead on his speech's rhythm and cadence. He was normally reserved, but when he talked about something he cared about, he stopped sounding shy and halting and his voice took on a flow which was almost musical unless, ironically, he tried singing.

"Here we are," she interrupted, stopping him by QQS's front. It had a glass display front with models of stock, and behind that a magically expanded interior where four people were happily zipping about. She glanced around. "No Ron."

Harry looked around outside. "There's Parvati, over there," he said, pointing with his nose, where she was walking with her sister, laden with shopping. "She'll have noticed if Lavender came to fetch him."

He and Hermione jogged lightly to catch up. "Hey, Parvati! Padma!"

They turned and Parvati smiled. "Hullo, Harry, Hermione. What do you think?"

She wore a long coat of dark red crushed velvet; she held out her arms and twirled to show it off. Padma wore a matching coat of Tyrian purple.

"_I_ think you're going to have a very dull wardrobe if you _always_ go with House colours," Padma said.

"I'd think so too if it meant I had to wear blue and brown," Parvati shot back. "With _our_ colouring."

"It looks great on you," said Hermione. "Have you –"

"I also got this dress," Parvati went on, reaching into one of her bags and pulling out a golden crinoline. Padma cringed, and instead turned to watch as a third singing dog came around a street corner. "Kelly was talking about starting up a ballroom dancing club. You know, Harry, we'd need boys, if you were interested …"

"I'll think about it," he lied. "Have you seen Ron?"

"Yes," Parvati said, "but he was with Lavender, so I don't think he'll be much use for a while. They went toward this, um, risqué place, whose name I've forgotten. Pad, what was its name? It's that one with all those privacy enchantments."

"Peppercorn Café?" Hermione asked, dismayed.

"Yeah," said Parvati, "I told her she couldn't –"

"Parv, it's Mum!" Padma hissed, and in a flash, both girls were gone. A moment later, a sharp-faced Indian woman pushed through to where they had been standing, glanced around, and then continued on toward them.

Harry and Hermione exchanged glances and shrugs. "Peppercorn Café is this way, I think," she said. "We're going to have trouble getting in. It's bewitched so you can't see anyone at any other tables … or what they're doing."

He considered this. She was way ahead of him.

"Tomes and Scrolls had a book on famous wizarding landmarks in Britain," she added; "it rated Peppercorn Café number thirty-four."

It began snowing a little more heavily as they walked, thickening enough to crunch under their feet and forcing Hermione to toss her hair periodically to keep it dry.

When they got there and went inside, she was mildly surprised to learn that there was no greeter. There was almost no ambient light, provided only by slivers of light through drawn blinds. There were nine circular tables lit with candles, most of them occupied by shadowy figures Hermione couldn't make out at all. It was quiet; there was a gentle burble of conversation, but no individual words or voices were distinguishable.

"What do we do now?" Harry asked, his voice instinctively dropping to a whisper.

"Normally, we'd pick a table and sit," she replied. "There are no waiters, privacy is so important here; I think they use a dumb-waiter enchantment similar to Hogwarts', where there's a separate kitchen and that shifts your food up to you. If you want to eat with someone, you have to meet up with them outside, because there's another enchantment that keeps you from intruding if someone else is already at a table."

"Well that's just great," he said. "How are we supposed to talk to Ron, then?"

"I don't know," said Hermione, considering and discarding options faster than she could speak.

"Is there a manager we could ask?" Harry suggested.

She shook her head. "_No-one_ can know who's doing what here. That's its entire point. Even with a Ministry subpoena, there's no way to break through without disenchanting this entire building. They've tried to close this place down twenty-two times."

Harry frowned. "If he had his DA coin on him, we could have used that."

"If either of us had ours," Hermione pointed out. She'd never really thought it was a good idea to stop holding DA training while Voldemort was still at large, but she'd been distracted by that dratted potions book every time she'd meant to bring it up.

"Well," he said, "we could … we could trying Summoning him."

He pulled out his wand; she grabbed his wrist.

"Harry!" she hissed. "You're underage and you have a warning on your permanent record!"

"Yeah, so?" he said. "They can't prove it's me if I'm in Diagon Alley and no-one can see us."

Ron materialised in front of them.

"Actually, me and Lavender can see you just fine," he said.

"Oh," said Harry.

There was a beat.

Lavender appeared beside Ron and took his hand. "What did you want to talk about, then?"

"Excuse us," he said. He took Ron's arm and led him and Hermione to an empty table, leaving Lavender standing outside its bubble of secrecy. "Ron, Hermione and I" she snorted and looked up and away from both of them "are here to rescue you."

Ron gave him a 'I'm sure I'm missing something here' look. "This is Lavender Brown, Harry, not Bellatrix Lestrange. I grant that they have pretty similar hairstyles, but –"

"Look," said Harry, "I thought, after me and Cho …"

Ron gave him a sceptical look.

"Harry," he said, "no offence, but back then, you had _no clue_ what you were doing, and Cho was barking mad. You didn't last fifteen minutes. I've been with Lavender for a month now. We're fine. We have fun hanging out together. We like each other."

Hermione liked to think of herself as even-tempered, poised, and rational, but something about Ron set her off every time; she just couldn't help herself. "You two are a terrible match," she said. "You have no shared interests and nothing in common. All you do is …"

"Is none of your business, Hermione," said Ron, red but defiant. "You had even less in common with Viktor Krum. Are we going to marry one day? Probably not. But right now, we're having fun, and we're actually having a relationship, which is more than either of you can say for yourselves. So if that's all you wanted to say, thanks, but I was doing something just now." And with that, he stood and rejoined Lavender, and they went back to their meal, becoming indistinct blurs once more.

"…" said Harry. Hermione nodded.

Without a word, they stood up, left, and walked to Flourish and Blotts. A familiar harassed-looking woman with mousy hair and a concealed wand holster watched them go.

… … …

AN: If you thought any of my phrasing was unusually stilted, this was written for a challenge which stipulated that I had to write a piece without any definite articles anywhere, including in its title and ANs.


End file.
